FOREST PLANTING ON COAL LANDS IN WESTERN 

 PENNSYLVANIA. 



HISTORY OF THE ORIGINAL FOREST. 



In the eighteenth century the upper Ohio Valley was covered by a 

 dense hardwood forest, in which oak, hickory, ash, yellow poplar 

 (tulip tree), walnut, maple, and other valuable species attained fine 

 proportions. The white oak was one of the most important trees in 

 the forest. Michaux, the French botanist, who traveled through the 

 region near the close of the century, wrote: "The white oak abounds 

 chiefly in the Middle States and in Virginia, particularly in that part of 

 Pennsylvania and Virginia which lies between the Alleghenies and the 

 Ohio, a distance of 150 miles, beginning at Brownsville, on the Monon- 

 gahela. Near Greensburg, Macconnelsville, Unionville, and Wash- 

 ington Court House I have seen large forests, nine-tenths of which 

 consisted of white oak whose healthful appearance evinced the favor- 

 able nature of the soil." 



Of this great forest in the northern end of the Appalachian coal 

 field only a small percentage remains to-day. The detailed history 

 of its consumption is in many respects different from that of other 

 regions, since, despite some influences which tended toward conserva- 

 tion, the forest was ultimately reduced to isolated woodlots. 



The soil was early found to be valuable for agriculture, and this was 

 the first incentive to clear the land. The trees were felled, rolled into 

 piles, and burned. Later the timber on lands near the principal 

 rivers was cut for lumber and transported down the Ohio to market. 

 When railroads began to intersect the country new territory was 

 made accessible to lumbering. 



It is uncertain when the use of wood for fuel was replaced by coal, 

 but it is reported that by 1825 some 3,500 tons of coal were used in the 

 vicinity of Pittsburg, and in 1846 local consumption had increased to 

 464,000 tons. In those localities where natural gas was abundant it 

 replaced both coal and wood as fuel. But with the development of 

 the charcoal iron industry another cause of rapid wood consumption 

 arose. Even in the eighteenth century a relatively small number of 

 blast furnaces for iron making were in operation, but during the first 



a The North American Silva, by Francois Andrew Michaux; translated by Augustus L. 

 Hillhouse, 1819. 



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